Questions about sequence of training

May 16th, 2013, 09:09 PM

I am highly considering the Army National Guard. I currently have spoke with a recruiter, created my package and plan on doing my MEPS soon. I have a few questions which someone who may have gone through it may know.

I am currently in College for my Bachelors degree. I will graduate in May 2014. (I plan on going to OCS) I would like to pursue a career in the Guard. I know some people that are civilian workers for the Guard, and this is somewhat what I want to do. I want to do an I.T. job for the Guard within the U.S. until I can retire. (Not enlist, go to Iraq for a few years, and discharge (not that that is a bad thing)) I am looking into the more long term. As I understand it (and I may understand wrong), I need the go through MEPS, sign on the dotted line, and ship to Basic.

After basic, do I need to go to AIT school even if I plan on attending OCS? Ideally I would like to attend basic this summer, come home, finish school (while working full time and getting paid in the Guard, I believe I have to be considered active duty and attend monthly drills which is not a problem), and ship to OCS after I graduate, then go to the base I will be working as a career standard 9-5 type job (horrible analogy ). If I can get into basic in time this summer, is this idea correct?

Also I have heard that I can enlist with an OCS contract and go to Basic, then directly to OCS (instead of AIT). This is ideal and I wondered if you can have a break between Basic and OCS, I would like to finish basic this summer, finish school, and then do OCS next summer.

Yes but can I split up the time frames. Say I start basic 05/20/2013 and it goes until 07/29/2013 (10weeks), school begins say on 08/05/2013 and goes until 05/01/2014. Am I able to finish basic, finish school, and then attend OCS after the 05/01/2014 date?

Comment

Yes but can I split up the time frames. Say I start basic 05/20/2013 and it goes until 07/29/2013 (10weeks), school begins say on 08/05/2013 and goes until 05/01/2014. Am I able to finish basic, finish school, and then attend OCS after the 05/01/2014 date?

You seem to be talking about Federal OCS. However, there's a great option available for you that is called Traditional OCS. You only have to have 60 credit hours to start and 90 credit hours to commission.

Say you enlist 09S today. You could go to BCT this summer (although you'd need to join up soon or you'll be pushing it to make it back by AUG). The Traditional OCS programs typically start in March/April timeframe of each calendar year, so you've already missed the boat for this year.

Anyway what would occur with Traditional is you'd go to BCT, continue drilling either with an RSP or RSP-O, and then get handed off to your state's RTI for OCS around March 2014. They'd prep you and then you would go to OCS Phase I in June/July of 2014 which is a 2-week AT period, you'd continue drilling one weekend a month throughout 2014/2015 for Phase II, then go to Phase III for your final OCS 2-week AT in July/August 2015. It's a longer road but it is worth it.

The other option is Accelerated (AOCS), which is 8 weeks straight through, but as money tightens up and slots go away state's are increasingly getting pickier on who they send to AOCS. Many states will only send prior-service soldiers these days because they feel they'll have a greater chance of making it all the way through. However, if given the option that scenario would put you shipping to AOCS in June 2014 and going straight through for 8 weeks, completing around August 2014.

Get with your state's Officer Strength Manager (OSM) for more details.

Comment

OC McClure offers good advice. You can commission before your degree is complete, as long as you finish your degree before you're eligible to promote to CPT. That's the way it was when I started the program, anyway.

If you don't want to do that, then BCT followed by AIT is the way to go. No unit is going to want you taking up a spot on their UMR for 6+ months when you're non-MOS qualified.